Level Performance Sheet
Overview
This page highlights the work I have done to go hand-in-hand with the Level Balancing Sheet. To monitor Level Performance, I have created 2 different sheets. One is a simple and quick overview, showing some average metrics as well as a quick glance at problem levels. The second part contains the list of levels. This list is mostly generated and in the future some automation will enable this to update itself. It is important to note, all data used in these images is dummy data and does not belong to any game either in development or live on the stores.
The biggest accomplishments on this sheet are:
- The strong link with the Level Balancing Sheet
- The Data Sheet is driven by another sheet holding all benchmarks, variables & thresholds for easy customisation
- Level Rating, a quick and easy metric to indicate whether or not a level is good
APS Overview
On the performance overview, the first thing you see is an APS curve comparison. It maps out the desired curve coming from the Level Balancing Sheet and overlays another curve representing the data we get from the live game.
Averages & Problems
Furthermore, we see some averages. The intention is to show an overall quality, whether or not the level difficulties are as intended, whether the levels overall are in a good state etc.
The most useful data here however is the problem levels section. This automatically grabs Levels that have a score below 2.5. The Level Score is determined based on APS Difference, Churn % and Continue % and is a range of 1-5. The problem levels highlights the ones that will need work in the short term.
Performance Data
The data driving the overview and fuels the graphs consists of a number of columns. The data in the sheet is automatically filled (except for the Live columns, though it should be easy enough to create an automation here).
- Levels – Straightforward
- ID – A unique ID for the level
- Target APS – Comes from the balancing sheet
- Difficulty Level – Indication of the level difficulty
- Live APS – APS for the level taken from Live data
- APS % Diff – % difference between Target and Live
- % Churn – % of players churning
- % Continue – % of players converting for second chance
- APS Performance – Indicator on performance
- Churn Performance – Indicator on performance
- Continue Performance – Indicator on performance
- Level Rating – Calculated from the performance indicators
Raw Data
This part of the sheet can essentially be hidden. It is a configurable piece that informs all the performance indicators, labels used etc.
The idea here is that this is configured as soon as the goals and targets for a “good” level are determined. If levels don’t live up to the benchmarks, they’ll be called out in the performance sheet.
Dynamic Sheet
It might be a bit hard to see in the video, as it simply covers the curve, however I am constantly altering the amount of levels and the formula values off-screen. The actual data used in the graph comes from the Performance Data sheet, showing that the two are linked.